Blood Mate (10 page)

August flipped
through the personal ads, used a bit of suggestion to re-job
Nicolette’s replacement, tweaked everyone’s memories, and now she
was set to return to work in the next few days, as soon as she put
the weight back on.

In normal
circumstances it would take weeks of being well-fed to return to full
health and vitality, but the bond had changed her in ways she
wouldn’t fully comprehend for a while.

He made it back to
her house in time to overhear the end of her lovemaking with Dominic.
The rain had started again, gently pattering against the world.
August stood next to the window, allowing the water to fall on him as
he eavesdropped.

He was relieved to
hear how happy she sounded, as if the past months in his cellar had
never happened. Despite the promises of the bond, he hadn’t been
sure it would take away the evil he’d done, or minimize it so she
could laugh again. If the bond hadn’t done the full job, being
reunited with Dominic had.

He chanced a
glance inside the window. The two lovers were a tangle of writhing,
naked limbs. He pressed his hand against the wet pane, leaving a
print behind.

“I’ll see you
soon, my dear.”

Chapter Seven

Nicole hummed to
herself as she straightened the dining room. She’d spent the
afternoon at the spa getting a massage and Brazilian wax. Neither the
massage therapist nor her wax girl had said anything about her
appearance except that she seemed to have lost a little weight.
Nicole said it was stress, and they’d left it alone after that.

The law office was
usually closed on Monday, but Dominic had a lot of work on his plate
and had gone in anyway. He’d come home for dinner, but had to go
back to the office again.

The doorbell rang.

“Just a minute,”
she called out. She put a coffee mug in the sink and smoothed down
her sundress. Had he forgotten something?

Her face drained
of blood when she opened the door to find the vampire on the other
side.

“May I come in?”
he asked with such smooth politeness, it was easy for a moment to
forget their ugly history.

“Do I have a
choice?”

How could she have
forgotten August? Was one Sunday afternoon and night in Dominic’s
bed enough to make her forget how she’d sealed her fate? Her body
went rigid at a flashback of the vampire’s bite. She worked to keep
her lip from trembling. She didn’t want to hurt again. Not this
soon. She needed more time.

“Do you want to
travel down that path with me, Nicolette? Without an invitation, no,
I can’t get into your home—even with the bond—but if you starve
me or force me to kill, I’ll smoke you out. This barrier won’t
stop me.”

She shivered at
his intensity. “C-come in.”

How long would the
vampire stay? Nicole prayed he would feed quickly and leave. She’d
endure it and then he’d go. She pushed down the feeling of
revulsion at being fed on. The bargain she’d made stretched before
her endlessly. Even the balm of Dominic’s love couldn’t tamp down
her panic at how she’d been ensnared.

August stepped
inside and hung his coat on the peg near the door. She took a step
back, but he caught her hand before she could get away and raised it
to his lips to brush a soft kiss against her skin.

“Don’t be
scared of me, poppet. I’m the one who will be here when he’s
gone. When they’re all gone. You’ll want me around then.”

“And what if I
don’t?” If she didn’t live into his fantasy, would he grow
angry with her? Would this mask of kindness disappear?

“You will. I
have the life experience to know you will. I’ll wait for you. As
long as it takes.” He released her hand and settled on the couch,
patting the seat beside him. “I’m very hungry tonight. Let’s
not draw this out.”

That tremble, the
one she’d tried to keep out of her lip, had returned. “A-August,
please… I know I promised, but it hurts too much. I-I can’t do
this every night. Please don’t make me.”

He watched her
dispassionately from the sofa, an arm draped over the back of it
where he intended her to sit. “How much did it hurt yesterday
morning?”

“That was
different. I was distracted and embarrassed and scared for my
parents. And… you could have stabbed me with a hot poker, and I
don’t think I would have fully registered it.”

“I’m not going
to kill anymore. You’ll learn to cope with the pain. You’re mine
now. If being with Dominic causes you to forget your duty to me, then
perhaps we’ll have to rethink this arrangement.”

She felt the trap
close over her. He couldn’t take the one good thing in her life.
She couldn’t cope with losing her husband now. To sacrifice herself
forever only to be back in his arms for one day… It would have been
better to die in the cage.

She perched on the
edge of the sofa, as if poised to flee. As if she could get away once
that strong jaw locked on her throat.

The vampire’s
fingertips skimmed across her neck and collarbone and down her arms.
She jumped when his hand slipped underneath her dress and stroked up
her thigh between her legs.

“Don’t,” she
said, closing her eyes to make it all go away.

“So many veins
to choose from. I’m just trying to pick.”

His demeanor was
different. Though a sadness clung to him, like a ghost that couldn’t
find rest, a lightness peaked around the edges. A new hope. Freedom.

She froze when the
pad of his thumb brushed next to her panties.

“The femoral
artery is a great place to feed. But we won’t do it until you’re
ready.”

Nicole let out a
relieved sigh as he withdrew his hand from under her dress. She
tensed again when he brushed the hair from her shoulder, exposing her
throat. He bared his fangs and struck.

She tried to pull
away, but he held her with jaw and hands. She closed her eyes and
tried not to think, tried to go blank and make it stop happening. She
tried for those minutes to stop existing altogether.

The moment his
fangs were out of her throat, she raced down the hall to the
bathroom. Dropping to her knees in front of the toilet, she emptied
the contents of her stomach. When she had nothing left to throw up,
she laid her cheek against the cool tile and wept.

“Nicolette.”

“Go away.
Please, just go.”

He disappeared
down the hallway and returned a few minutes later. Why couldn’t the
bastard leave? He sat on the tile beside her and pulled her into his
arms.

“Here, I got you
some water from the kitchen.”

He stroked her
hair as she drank and tried to stop her mind from racing. The pain in
his eyes made everything worse. Why did it have to be her? Why
couldn’t it have been someone else?

“You didn’t
react like this before. Is it hurting more? I don’t want you to
suffer, poppet. I wanted to stop killing, but I don’t want to hurt
you.”

She set the glass
on the tile and laid her head against his chest. After several
minutes she collected herself and pulled away. He would have to know
the truth some time.

“It didn’t
hurt. It was so much worse than that.”

His head tilted to
the side like a puppy trying to work out a riddle.

She wanted the
floor to open up. She wanted death to be possible. “I wanted you,”
she whispered. “It didn’t hurt. It felt… good. It felt like
making love. It felt like cheating on Dominic.”

“Do you want to
know what I think?”

She really didn’t.
She wanted him to vanish, to die, to somehow undo the link between
them so someday
she
could die. Her soul had diverged eternally
from its mate. The rift between her and Dominic might not be large
yet, but they were moving down different trajectories, with the end
result being eternal separation. And the weight of it was only now
beginning to settle upon her shoulders.

If she’d been
strong and rejected the devil’s offer, she could have died, and had
some hope of her soul reuniting with her husband’s in the
hereafter. But being kept in a cage, nearly starving with no light
and nothing but scared, doomed people for company for so long had
made the short-term gain feel like a good deal. Like a consolation
prize. Like she was winning.

The long absence
had made it feel as if she could go on without Dominic at some
mythical future point that she wouldn’t have to think about for a
while—the way people skirted around thoughts of the ramifications
of their own deaths. Of course it would happen, far off in some
distant future that hardly felt real. If she could only have her
husband back loving her for now. If they could live out their lives
together like normal people. It would all be fine.

“I think it
would be better if you let him go now. We could leave the country for
a while. I have a home in Italy, nicer than the one here, in fact.
You could be happy there. I have a winery. You enjoy wine.”

Nicole went cold
and tense like a statue frozen in ice. The panic threatened to close
her throat, but she forced words out in time. “No! You promised.
Please, August, you said I could have him.”

“But you can’t
handle it. It’ll destroy you to be with me while you’re with him.
You’ll feel torn between us. You’ll feel guilty, like it’s your
fault for not suffering at my hands.” He rocked her in his arms,
and she found herself lost in the soothing feel of it—if she could
separate the comforting gesture from the man who’d caused it to be
necessary.

“I needed to
stop killing. I didn’t want this. I wanted to show you that I
wasn’t a monster. I wish I’d gotten to you before him. Things
would have gone differently.”

Nicole shut her
eyes and tried to imagine never knowing Dominic. Of August being able
to project smooth charm and confidence when they’d met instead of
crazed desperation. Of his checkered past being so vague and shadowy
to almost be sexy. Would she have wanted him? Yes. Would she have
loved him? Maybe. But right now she felt like a cheating whore who’d
somehow betrayed the man she loved, the man who’d made her happy
and given her everything for a decade. He was the innocent in this.

August was right,
she was selfish trying to keep her husband, but she couldn’t
succumb to the vampire. If she went away with him and left everyone
else behind, what if she developed a feeling beyond arousal? After
the way he’d shattered her life, he couldn’t be the victor.

He would have done
every heinous thing he could invent to wear her down and gain her
consent. Despite her resolve to die… deep down she knew he would
have won anyway. Surely centuries of killing gave one insight into
creative ways of keeping people alive when necessary.

She gathered the
energy she had and released it in a string of words so bitter she was
sure they could have burned holes through his soul. “It’s not
your decision to make. If you take me from him now, I will hate you
forever.”

He sighed. “I
wish I thought you were being dramatic. But I believe you believe
that.”

***

When Nicolette had
gotten hold of herself, August left her for the night. Vampiric
thrall was a hideous thing. Controlling people like puppets on
strings, making them obey out of amusement or necessity had always
disturbed him. And yet, if he could, he would grip Nicolette’s mind
with the force of a thousand of his kind and force her to forget her
husband, her family, her friends. Forget they’d ever existed. He’d
create a world where only he mattered to her.

He’d uproot her
without mercy and replant her across the ocean while those she’d
known and loved died out. And he wouldn’t feel an ounce of remorse
for it.

August sat outside
Dominic’s law firm with the car idling. How long would it take her
to forgive him for killing her husband? He pressed his fingers
against his temples as if he could push the thoughts out and away.
He’d been kidding himself. Centuries of killing did something very
wrong to one’s brain.

Whoever he’d
been before the curse, he wasn’t that man now. Only the lifting of
the fog over his life, the end to the necessary killing, had made it
clear—no matter what he wanted her to think. He’d become
ruthless, and despite the torment of killing, hadn’t his suffering
already diminished over the centuries? The horror had become the
backdrop against which he lived his life. The familiar thing. And
sometimes the familiar thing could be coped with, given enough
experience.

There had been a
time when he’d suffered and sobbed for hours until he’d cried
himself to sleep over the most recent death, only to wake and have to
repeat the process again. Before Nicolette, his breakdowns had lasted
far shorter periods. A few broken sobs. Extreme guilt and pain for an
hour or two each night afterward, then a lower level depression and
resignation that made him so tired he wanted to sleep for the rest of
his existence. If he could manage to stay asleep that long.

In six hundred
more years would he have successfully shut off his empathy so he
could be a true predator not only in deed but in thought? His own
brand of freedom from the curse? There was no guarantee. Nicolette
had been a guarantee too hard to pass up.

Dominic’s car
was the only other car in the lot. He must want a gold feather in his
cap for going that extra mile. It was the mile he’d die on.

August slammed the
door of the Bugatti. His vision was hazed by a red mist only he could
see. The killing urge. Only this time, it wasn’t for hunger.

The gilded book in
his library popped into his mind, the pages fluttering open to the
legend of the blood mate, the words he’d read a thousand times, the
fine print. The warning. What did freedom mean? For centuries, he’d
operated outside the boundaries of free will, doing what he was
forced to do and suffering for each life he took. And now? He could
kill a man for purely personal reasons, without the torment the curse
had provided him with. Now he could do it and like it.